


As Long As You'll Have Me (But Not In THAT Way)

by sophiewritesandstuff (orphan_account)



Series: Yours (In Whatever Way You Need Me To Be) [1]
Category: Free!
Genre: Asexuality, Coming Out, F/M, Fluffy Ending, Getting Together, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Sexual Orientations, romantic orientations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 21:50:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/sophiewritesandstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gou comes out as asexual to the Iwatobi boys, explaining exactly what it means. Haruka finally understands himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Long As You'll Have Me (But Not In THAT Way)

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to preface this by saying that I myself am not asexual, though I do know people who identify as such, and I've done a lot of research on the AVEN website to make this fic as accurate as I possibly can, but if anything's incorrect or potentially upsetting/offensive, please message me and I'll make corrections asap! Thank you, and I hope you enjoy it!

There was something about Haruka, Gou thought to herself. Something that she felt that the rest of the swim team didn’t understand.

Of course there was no way of knowing if she was right, and she didn’t feel comfortable going right up to him and asking him, especially as it was nothing but an assumption. But with Makoto and Nagisa dating, and now her brother and Rei, she was becoming more and more certain that she was correct.

She had noticed the way Haruka clammed up whenever the discussion turned remotely sexual, and those chats usually ended in her and Haruka blushing and looking uncomfortable while the couples practically eye-fucked each other, and sometimes in Makoto and Nagisa’s case, even started making out (although Rin had ended up yelling at them for “acting lewd in front of my baby sister god damn it keep it in your pants you two!”).

It wasn’t that Gou was innocent, far from it. After Rin had told her and Mom that he was bisexual, she had endeavoured to put some research into not only her brother’s orientation, in order to be supportive of him, but her own as well. Unlike Rin, who seemed to be some kind of nymphomaniac (according to the marks Rei frequently showed up to swim practise with), Gou had never understood the appeal to sexual activity. It just seemed messy and a lot of hard work, and although she had experienced sexual urges, she never really bothered to take care of them, preferring instead to let it go away on its own, or to put that energy into some form of exercise (she loved to dance, and would often do that instead). The one time she had attempted masturbation, she had given up halfway through, as all attempts to think of anything that might get her off had proved fruitless. She had even tried thinking of muscles, but if anything that had just made her uncomfortable as she had thought of the swim team by association.

And then, an epiphany had arrived, in the form of one little word and its definition:

_“ Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to anyone, or low or absent interest in sexual activity.”_

In that moment, Gou finally felt like she understood herself. Everything fell even further into place the more research she did, and the more words she discovered that described various things she had been feeling about herself (and why on earth hadn’t she realised _romantic_ orientation was a thing? That made the slightly-confusing crush she’d had on Hana-chan last year make way more sense). It was late at night on the same day that Rin had come out to her and their mother, and Rin was staying over for the night as it was a holiday weekend, and Gou could hardly contain herself; she rushed through to her brother’s room and had blurted out everything she’d just been researching. She was breathless when she stopped talking, and Rin had given his sister a small smile.

“I’m proud of you, Gou. C’mere.” He had held his arms out and she had rushed into them. It had been years since they had shared a real, meaningful hug, and Gou’s eyes welled up with tears, and a few drips on the top of her head confirmed she wasn’t the only one.

“I’m p-proud of you too, onii-chan.”

Rin had let out a soft chuckle. “There’s a reason I came out to you and Mom tonight. There’s someone I like, and tomorrow… Tomorrow I’m going to ask him to be my boyfriend.”

Gou had squealed excitedly, hugging Rin harder. “Oooh, that’s so exciting! Good luck! Is it someone I know?” Gou released her brother from her embrace, only to see him blushing profusely.

“Y-yeah, you know him. It’s… It’s Rei. I’m going to ask him after the Iwatobi-Samezuka joint practise tomorrow afternoon.”

Gou had immediately squealed again and launched into another hug with her brother. “Awwwww! I’m sure he’ll say yes! He never stops talking about you; ‘Rin-san this’, ‘Rin-san that’, it’s really cute!”

Rin had blushed even harder. “R-really?”

Gou had nodded. “Anyway, you should get to bed if you want to be on top form at practise tomorrow, and you need your beauty sleep ready to confess undying love to your boyfriend Rei-kun.” Gou had skipped out of the room grinning.

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Rin had called after her, although Gou just knew he had added a ‘yet’ under his breath…

A few months after that day, and Gou had become steadily more certain that Haruka may have been like her. Maybe he hadn’t realised it, or maybe he was uncomfortable mentioning it. She was also fairly certain that she was developing romantic feelings for him, and yet she was hesitant about expressing those feelings to him. Especially as she hadn’t yet felt the need to come out to the Iwatobi boys. She figured that maybe if she did, it might help in the event that she ever decided to confess how she felt to Haruka, and if he was, as she suspected, also asexual, then perhaps it would help him to understand himself too.

So as they all sat around the kotatsu in Haruka’s house, she cleared her throat pointedly, and they all turned to look at her.

“Gou-chan, is something wrong?” Nagisa asked.

“It’s Kou!” she replied, more out of habit than anything else, as she had known for a long time now that Nagisa would probably never use her preferred name. “But, well, nothing’s _wrong_ exactly, though I do have something to say to everyone.”

“Go ahead, Gou-chan.” Makoto said gently, with a soft smile, and Rei and Haruka nodded too.

“Well… This doesn’t exactly affect any of you directly, but I want you all to know something about me. I’m sure you all know how it feels to come out to people and how nice it is when they understand, so…” She paused, taking a deep breath. “I’m asexual. If any of you don’t know what it means, I can explain if you like.”

Gou did a quick scan of the looks on their faces. Rei seemed to understand the term, as he was nodding and smiling, but Makoto looked a little thrown, Nagisa was frowning quizzically, and a quick sideways glance confirmed that Haruka, sitting next to her, remained as stoic as ever, so there was no way to tell how he was taking it.

“A… sexual...” Nagisa spoke the word aloud slowly, as though mulling it over and trying to understand it on his own. Eventually he shook his head. “Sorry, Gou-chan, I’ve not heard it before!”

Gou smiled kindly. “That’s okay, Nagisa-kun. I know it’s not a very common term. What it means is that someone rarely or never experiences sexual attraction to people of any gender.”

“So… Does that mean you don’t want to date people at all?” Makoto asked tentatively. “S-sorry if that’s rude! I’m just curious…”

Gou shook her head. “No, no, Makoto-senpai, if you have any questions I’d rather you ask me. And no, it doesn’t mean I don’t want to date. It just means that if I did date someone, that I most likely will never experience any kind of sexual feelings for them. I can still experience romantic feelings for people. A person’s romantic orientation and sexual orientation won’t always match. For example a boy could feel sexual attraction only to boys, but not feel romantically about anyone. That’s called being aromantic and homosexual. As for me, I feel romantic attraction to boys and girls, but I don’t feel sexually attracted to people at all, so I’m biromantic and asexual.”

“So you’ll probably never have sex even if you date someone, or even if you get married to someone?” Nagisa queried.

“Not exactly. There are different kinds of asexual people, Nagisa-kun. I’m a sex-indifferent asexual, and that means that although I don’t experience sexual attraction, I’m not _against_ performing sexual acts, however I’m not exactly eager to perform them. Honestly, to me sex has always just seemed like a pain in the ass, no pun intended.” Gou laughed as she realised her accidental joke, and Nagisa laughed too, although Makoto and Rei blushed slightly. “However, someone could also be a sex-positive asexual, which means that although they don’t feel sexual attraction, they will still have sex, for pleasing a partner, or possibly for having a child, and the opposite of that would be a sex-repulsed or sex-averse asexual, someone who gets very uncomfortable at the thought of having sex and doesn’t want to do it at all.”

“Wow, it’s all quite complicated, isn’t it, Gou-chan?” Nagisa said with a grin. “I think my brain’s hurting!”

“Really, Nagisa-kun, it’s not that much information, it’s certainly less than an average history lesson…” Rei finally spoke up, rolling his eyes at Nagisa. “Anyway, Gou-san, thank you for trusting us enough to tell us. I’m sure we can all understand how nervous you must have been, and I for one think… Haruka-senpai?”

To everyone’s surprise, Haruka had stood up abruptly and was striding out of the room silently. However, just as he turned the corner, a very audible sniff was heard.

“Is Haru-chan… crying?” Nagisa sounded both concerned and bewildered. Makoto got up as if to follow, but Gou was already on her feet, shaking her head.

“Its okay, Makoto-senpai. I’ll go after him. If something I said has upset him, I ought to apologise.”

“If you insist, Gou-chan. Oh, just one thing. I agree with Rei, I’m very grateful that you trusted us with this information about yourself. We all care about you, and we know you’re still the same Gou-chan. We just know a bit more about you now.”

“Yeah, exactly! We all love you as your friends, Gou-chan!” Nagisa piped up, smiling now, and Rei simply nodded.

“Thanks, guys.” Gou smiled back at them warmly. “I’ll go see what’s wrong with Haruka-senpai.”

Gou climbed the stairs quietly and tiptoed into Haruka’s room. She expected either to find him curled up on the bed, or to have to go to the bathroom to find him. What she discovered, however, was Haruka sitting bolt upright at his desk with his laptop open. The screen shone blindingly in the otherwise dark room, illuminating Haruka’s face, and Gou saw tears falling from Haruka’s eyes. She crept a little closer and read the webpage he had open over his shoulder. She recognised the colours instantly as those belonging to a website that she had used on the night she had figured out her own sexuality.

“Haruka-senpai…” she whispered softly. Haruka jumped, but didn’t turn around, his eyes still fixated on the screen although his vision was blurred by tears.

“I get it now.” Haruka’s voice was surprisingly clear, despite the obvious emotion in it. Gou tentatively put a hand on his shoulder, as Haruka continued, not breaking his stare. “I was always so confused as to why I just didn’t feel the way other people did about sex. And then about a month ago, when all of us went to that café… You looked so pretty, and I thought that I was gonna be “normal”, that I was gonna experience the same sexual feelings that everyone around me was feeling, but there was nothing.”

Gou felt a blush rising in her cheeks. Haruka-senpai… had some kind of feelings for her? She was also somewhat surprised – she didn’t think she’d ever heard Haruka talk this much in such a short space of time.

“I thought I couldn’t possibly ask you out or anything, because you’d probably want to have sex, and if that was something I couldn’t give you then you were better off with someone else.” Haruka finally paused, taking deep breaths, and wiping the tears from his face with his sleeves, before standing and turning to face Gou. “But now… Now I understand. I know what I am. I’m what you are, Kou-chan. And I want to be with you, romantically. As long as you’ll have me. I mean, not _have_ me in, like, _that_ way, because, you know, yeah. Asexuality.”

Gou’s heart was threatening to beat right out of her chest, and there were tears pricking at the corners of her own eyes. She gave a small but eager nod, and Haruka understood, relief flooding onto his features.

“Haruka-senpai…” Gou began quietly.

“Hey…” Haruka reached for Gou’s hand and took it gently. “From now on, it’s just Haru, okay? I can’t have you calling me ‘senpai’ if you’re my girlfriend, can I?”

Gou’s face split into a huge smile, and she giggled, enthusiastically enveloping Haruka into a tight hug, which he returned after he managed to prevent himself from toppling onto the floor.

“We should rejoin the others. They were worried about you, Haruka-senp… Haru.”

“Yeah.”

They broke the hug reluctantly, and Haruka immediately slipped his hand back into Gou’s, and she blushed a little. They made their way downstairs and back into the room with the kotatsu.

“Haru! Are you alright?” Makoto asked.

“Yeah. Kou’s confession helped me realise something. I’m the same as her. I’m asexual too. But also, we like each other romantically. And we’re together now.” Haruka’s usual no-nonsense boldness faltered a little at the last sentence, and a small blush coloured his cheeks.

“Yay! Haru-chan and Gou-chan can be happy asexuals together!” Nagisa cheered, giggling, and Rei rolled his eyes again.

“That’s great, Haru-chan, Gou-chan! I’m proud of you both.” Makoto smiled, crossing the room and embracing them both as Rei made a small noise of agreement. “Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll make some tea? You both look like you need it.”

Haruka and Gou both nodded, resuming their places at the kotatsu, although they now sat closer together, and their hands remained intertwined under the table.

As far as coming-outs go, Gou thought, this particular one definitely could have gone a lot worse…


End file.
